Museum at the Bighorns
A newly relocated downtown museum uses rotating exhibitions and a deep county collection to connect Sheridan with the wider Bighorn region.
Artwork inspired by Hans Kleiber
Museum at the Bighorns is Sheridan County’s local-history museum, rebuilt inside a former Woolworth store on Main Street after leaving its Sibley Circle building in 2025. Its collection of more than 30,000 photographs, documents, and objects reaches from Indigenous histories and the region’s geology to ranching, coal mining, railroads, military conflict, and the making of Sheridan’s commercial center.
The downtown galleries are deliberately exhibition-driven rather than a permanent march through every era. The museum’s Miss Indian America Pageant portraits support a substantial account of All American Indian Days, the intertribal gathering held in Sheridan from 1953 to 1984. Read the individual biographies as carefully as the event chronology: they turn a regional celebration into a more complicated story of representation, diplomacy, community pride, and Native women’s public leadership.
- Scope
- More than 30,000 collection items
- Strength
- Rotating regional exhibitions
- Allow
- 60–90 minutes
Quick guide
- Begin
- Check the rotating exhibition before visiting; the gallery’s central story changes.
- Do not miss
- Compare downtown commerce with ranching, rail, coal, and reservation histories.
Read the collection at Museum at the Bighorns
- Orient downtown
- Begin with the move from the former Sibley Circle building to Sheridan's Main Street.
- Choose one system
- Follow ranching, rail, coal, commerce, or military conflict through objects and photographs.
- Read Native leadership
- Use Miss Indian America biographies to move beyond event chronology into individual public roles.
- Check the date
- Confirm the rotating exhibition before visiting; the gallery's central story changes.
Good to know
Use Suite 107 at 171 N Main Street beside Grinnell Plaza; old sources may still point to Sibley Circle. All American Indian Days and the Miss Indian America Pageant is a scheduled exhibition rather than a permanent gallery, so check the live roster before traveling for it.
Notice these
- More than 30,000 collection items
- Rotating regional exhibitions
- All American Indian Days and Miss Indian America portraits